The Paradigms, They are A-Changin'
by Rico Perrien
Summary: A sequel to 'HP and the Laws of Love'. Which is a sequel to 'Pansy Invictus'. It is 2015, and things are not going so well for Harry Potter and his large family. There are nefarious things a-foot, and some things just going off the rails over time.
1. The Paradigms

**Chapter 1: The Paradigms**

**Rating:** M AU Post-Hogwarts

**Disclaimer:** The usual – I own nothing, I see nothing, I hear nothing, I was not even here. Just playing in JKR's sandbox again.

**Author's Opening Note:** This is sequel to 'HP and the Laws of Love', which is itself a sequel to 'Pansy Invictus'.

In another story, some reviews objected strongly to the idea of polygamy. However, as I stated in my profile, I do not agree with the concept of polygamy either, but in conflict there are stories to be told. This is one of them.

**Warnings: **Some serious nastiness is apparent

**May 2015**

Harry Potter was exhausted. All was not well. Actually, many things were going very well, but not everything, so it would be more accurate to say that not all was well.

Of the things going well, the first was Harry's family, or rather, families. His six grown-up wives had 22 children between them, while the three Harry married to save their lives were not yet of age. There were definite signs that three more children would soon be added to the 'tribe'.

One task Harry had set for himself was to ensure that each and every one of his children would have a happier childhood than he himself had experienced. When he swore to himself that this would be the case, he had not realized how much work that task would entail.

After having six children between them, Daphne and Tracey informed Harry that, although they very much appreciated his help in creating and legitimizing their offspring, they felt it unnecessary for him to assist in putting more under their roof. As they had both been disowned by their families for their 'preference' for each other, and both being avid fans of Tolkien's works, Daphne (having been teased for most of her life for her petite stature and so being derisively called a dwarf) have named her two boys after dwarf kings, and her daughter was called Maria, being the closest 'normal' name to Moria while not having a suitable dwarfish female name, and not wanting Balin to claim lordship over his younger sister. Tracey's little Mariposa had Arwen and Sam for company.

Luna had presented Harry with three she had insisted be named for under-appreciated geniuses, and Gabrielle had two daughters she had named for her Veela relatives. Ginny Gabrielle and Luna, the three senior 'Potter' wives, were all expecting, again.

Harry Potter was often exhausted, just remembering the names of his offspring. If the Ministry's plan was for him to be responsible for repopulating the magical world after the second Voldemort War, he and his wives were doing their best. If the plan was also to keep Harry almost too busy to interfere with political skullduggery, that was pretty close to being a success as well.

Harry had also set himself two other tasks, to have his children be comfortable in both the magical and muggle worlds, and that they be as self-sufficient as possible. In the former quest, he made sure that each child was learning to prepare a healthy meal without the aid of magic or elven assistance (this took some negotiation with the family's elven population to allow unregulated access to the kitchen), and to wash dishes and do other housework in both mundane and magical fashion. Washing the dishes by hand also allowed Harry to have some one-on-one time with each child in turn, and this soon became a favourite time of the day for him and for them (how much time did they get to spend alone with their father, otherwise).

He tried to pass on his love of flying and quidditch to his family. Many enjoyed the flying, but not the rough-and-tumble of the game, and that was okay too. He smiled whenever he remembered Luna's little Maleva at one and a half years, toddling along with a whisk broom held between her little legs, trying to leap into the air.

As for things not going well, that also involved the family.

Tracey and Daphne and their children began being 'too busy' to attend family gatherings. To maintain the semblance of legality under the parochial laws of magical Britain, Harry still occasionally spent the night at the house referred to in the family as the DT's, but was usually accompanied by Lady Potter or occasionally by Lady Black. How many beds got occupied, and by whom, was the business of nobody outside the family.

Ginny was happy that Harry was no longer 'sharing' with the two, but Harry could not help feeling that he had been used. He had married the two of them so that no children that he helped create would have the stigma of illegitimacy, and their mothers would have the protection of the power and reputation of the Black family, as concubines of that house. Now that they were themselves established in their own businesses, and Harry's work in the Wizengamot was reducing any problems with their status, it seemed that he was now considered superfluous by the two Slytherins.

Pansy had gone and had a 'talk' with her old dorm-sisters, but this did not help. IF anything, the relations became for distant.

Four of Harry's children and his three youngest concubines were all attending Hogwarts, with two more pending in the next fall's sorting, along with their cousin Frida Weasley.

Molly Weasley had never really recovered from Fred's death in the War, having been already traumatized by her brothers' deaths in the first Voldemort War, and the fact that most of her children had named a child in honour of their fallen brother did not help her coming to terms with it as it was a constant reminded. Consequently, in an effort to assuage their mother's feelings, each got a nickname that did not say 'Fred' every time. Hermione's Frida and George's Ricky already noticed that when they misbehaved and they were called by their first names, Granma looked like she had just been hit with something hard and unpleasant.

When there was a Weasley family gathering, only Ginny's children would be invited, with the transparent claim that there just wasn't enough room at the rebuilt Burrow. She would attend gatherings at Potter Manor, but stuck closest to her own grandchildren. When Ginny called her on this, and said that in her opinion, all Harry's children were her children too, Molly responded that they were not all _her _grandchildren. Harry and Arthur had to pull the two irate witches apart before words were said that could never be un-spoken.

The presence of the three young concubines in the extended family was, to say the least, awkward. Betty was only a year older than Harry and Ginny's oldest daughter, and no matter how many entreaties and threats were made, there were persistent rumours at Hogwarts and throughout the wizarding world of pedophilia and child abuse. Some rumours claimed that all abused children become abusers themselves (and everyone knew Harry had been abused...). Harry knew that his children did not accept the rumours as fact, as he had given an order, as the Head of Two Ancient and Noble families, that if it were the case, his children were ordered to kill him. As a 'Family Order', it could not be disobeyed without them losing their magic and their own lives, and as he and they were still drawing breath, he knew that they had rejected the rumours as false.

Harry had even checked on the laws surrounding the marriages to the three sisters. Their mother had suggested the marriages so that the girls would not be executed with the rest of their family, and Harry had agreed, but refused to consummate the marriages until the girls were of age and only if they agreed. Betty was now a year away from that milestone, and the sense of awkwardness was growing within the family.

Harry had checked with Hermione (Dr. Hermione Granger-Weasley), who was now working in the legal department at the Ministry of Magic. After checking, she found that things were even worse than was originally suspected.

When the father of the girls had planted the bomb that had killed a number of Ron's teammates, and emasculated him, the law required that he and his family were all to be executed. Only by marrying, and under the paternalistic and parochial laws therefore no longer belonging to the father's family, were the girls saved from joining the execution of their parents and their brother.

If Harry released the girls from their concubinage, the fine-print in that particular law would find that both he and Hermione (who had advised him on the law) had intentionally perpetrated a fraud to circumvent the law, and thus were guilty of being accessories after the fact. As such, they and their entire families (all of the Potters, the Blacks and the Weasleys) would also be executed.

As a powerful member of the Wizengamot, Harry and his allies had tried to get this law overturned. The rationale that this law was unjust, because it punished the innocent for the acts of others, was met with unexpected and fierce resistance.

Although they had managed to push through changes to the laws to recognise other sentient magical species as having rights, largely eliminating the legal biases in favour of magical persons of so-called pure-blood, putting major restrictions on obliviating muggles, and prohibiting abuse of house elves, on this law the Wizengamot would not budge. Harry and Hermione looked at all the precedents, all the arguments, and all the reasons for repeal, and the members would not overturn the law. Even when those members were questioned on their reasons, they could not explain themselves, but they just would not vote to repeal.

Harry Potter was exhausted after a day of futile arguing, and came home to a very tense house. Uncharitably, he thought "What the hell is it now?" Pansy, Lady Black, and Ginny, Lady Potter, met Harry at the floo as he arrived. After years of experience, Harry no longer lost his balance completely when exiting the floo, although he did stumble a bit still.

Pansy, as always, came straight to the point. "Harry, we have some serious problems, and I have just received a very strange invitation from an owl I have never seen below."

She led the other two into her private study (and the headquarters of her information gathering agency). Sitting in the room we Harry's two oldest children. Marigold and Marcus were both in 4th year at Hogwarts, with both following in their mothers' Houses at Hogwarts.

Harry raised his eyebrows. "So what's so important, and how are the kids involved?"

Marcus gritted his teeth, and spoke. "Papa, we have discovered at least one source of the nasty rumours, or I guess, two sources. Now it may be accidental, so we don't want to jump to any conclusions, but Mama taught us to keep our eyes and ears open because things are not always as they seem." At Harry's questioning glance, he continued "Betty and Kitty. I heard some of the Slytherin boys talking about how they were going to 'bag' Kitty, or as they called her, Potter's whore. I followed them, carefully keeping out of sight with your cloak, and they cornered her near the library. She stunned them before they could attack, but then spoke to them quietly, and I couldn't hear what she said to them, but when she finished they all laughed, and the boys nodded as they walked away, saying 'That will get the old bastard for sure'."

Pansy looked at her son, and asked quietly "Their names? Marcus, their names."

"Angus McNair, and Edward Yaxley"

Pansy and Harry nodded as they recognised the names of the grandsons of two of the primary Death Eaters. Their fathers were two of the most conservative (aka, anti-Potter) faction in the Wizengamot. One of them had tried to accost Marigold in her second year, but she applied a muggle technique that her Aunt Hermione had taught her (passing on some of her own father's Royal Navy training), and his subsequent limping was not solely due to the broken ankle.

Marcus continued "Gus and Ned were joking as they came back to the dorms, laughing about how Kitty told them that she and Betty had been the ones spreading the rumours of child abuse."

Harry looked towards Pansy, who nodded and said, "They will be advised of the error of their ways. Subtly, as always."

Ginny shook her head in disbelief. "Do you remember when Betty was having those nightmares when she first got her period, and had bad cramps before Poppy got her onto the potions? She would wake up in her dorm screaming 'Harry, don't!'. When Poppy took a look at her to check her for any problems, she claimed that some of the older girls had been telling her how much her 'first time' was going to hurt, and she was dreading her 'consummation day'."

"Poppy called Pansy and me in to meet with Minerva, and told us this, so we could help her if this happened during the summer. Apparently, since McGonagall got the top job, she told Poppy to check for any evidence of abuse – I think she still feels guilty about leaving you with your relatives. She said she felt bad apparently not trusting you, but she could not in good conscience show any favouritism, so every and all rumours gets checked."

Marigold said, "I have heard that the other girls in her dorm started questioning Betty about what she had said, and she answered 'What do you think really happened?' You know how the Hogwarts rumour mill would have taken off with that."

Pansy commented, "The nightmares did not worry us so much, but her question to the other girls sounded like there was some other agenda. Maybe I'm being paranoid, but then that's my job. Anyway, I can see how that would get the rumour started."

Blushing, Marigold spoke again. "There was also a rumour floating around the girls' dorms, that Betty was, shall I say, 'amusing' herself, like girls in the dorm often do." Harry blushed at hearing his eldest daughter bring this topic up – no father really wants to know how well-informed his daughters are on such matters, much less that they may have put their information into practice. "Anyway, word was that Betty could go at it for an hour at a time, and the Slytherin girls were complaining about how noisy she was."

Marcus nodded. "The rumour wasn't restricted to the girls' dorms either. It was a favourite topic of discussion with the Slytherin boys, too. A lot of the boys seem almost intimidated by her, well, _stamina_. I mean, an hour?! The guys are in absolute awe of her. And of you, Dad"

Harry looked at his eldest son, silently mouthing, "What?"

Smiling at her brother's confirmation, Marigold continued. "Apparently, and this is just rumour you know, but she claimed, Daddy, that she was getting ready for her impending consummation with you, and that you were so virile that she need to be able to keep it up for at least an hour, which is rubbish."

Harry was puzzled by this last remark, but looking at his wives, he could see that they were desperately trying not to laugh. "What do you mean rubbish, Mari?"

Marigold gave her father the look that all teenaged girls practise to perfection, indicating that one of her parents was the dumbest thing since moldy cheese. "Daddy, I'm not stupid, and I'm not deaf! The most you and Mum last is about twenty-five minutes, and you and Mama Pansy manage about a half hour. Maximum. I think there's something up, like she's going to try to shag you into unconsciousness, or screw you stupid, or something like that."

Harry looked at his wives, and asked "She already told you this, right?" Ginny and Pansy nodded as they broke into hysterical laughter at his embarrassment. He smiled ruefully, and said "I suppose it's not the worst reputation to have," at which point Ginny threw a cushion at him.

Pansy smirked, and said "Harry, you must know it's not just the guys in the dorms who are obsessed with sex and talk about it a lot. It's the number one topic in the girls' dorms as well. By the way, the last time Betty was injured in a game of quidditch, after fixing the broken fingers Poppy checked her out, rather thoroughly I might add. Anyhow, no evidence of abuse or damage what-so-ever. No hair on the palms or knuckles, no failing eyesight. Nothing. Perhaps some calluses on the fingers, but that could have come from holding the broom while flying, no?"

By this time, the others in the rom were laughing. Except Ginny.

Ginny looked at her husband. "Harry, you know I have been uncomfortable with 'The Sisters' as part of our marriage. But I swear that this is none of my doing, and I would never try to undermine your trust in them. However, Pansy has looked into the matter, and is worried, and she knows what she is doing, so I am worried too."

Pansy looked at Harry, and continued to explain. "I know we have spoken about it, but Betty and Kitty seem to hang around together, and not mix with the other kids. Lydia mixes and plays with the others, but Betty and Kitty give her a look. I'm not sure to describe it as distain, or contempt. It's quite unsettling, and I'm getting more and more worried about it."

"On top of this, Rosemary and Katherine, Kitten and Kitty have been arguing over who has the right to their nicknames, as they are so similar. Yesterday, they had drawn their wands and Gabbi has to stop the form hexing each other. We tried to talk to them about changing the nicknames, something like calling Rosemary 'Pussycat' now that she's older and mostly grown up, and Katherine 'Katie', or 'Trina', but neither one was having any of it. Both insist vehemently that they had the name first. It's gotten to the point where most of the family doesn't use either nickname, because of the hostile reactions of the two. I think we are going to have trouble there."

In a desperate effort to change the subject, Harry looked at Pansy, and asked "You say you got a strange invitation from a strange owl?"

She nodded and handed him a parchment, bearing seal that Harry had never seen before.

It read:

_To Lady Black, Lady Potter, and Lord Potter, Lord Black, etc._

_It would be to our mutual advantage to meet to discuss matters of personal and national import. It would be best if all three of you attend._

_Unless it is inconvenient, I suggest meeting at three hours of the clock, in the afternoon of Tuesday next. Please let me know if this will be acceptable._

_I suggest meeting at the 'Pork and Prime Minister' pub in London, which is located one block from the headquarters of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). I should warn you that this locale has televisions continually showing reruns of a muggle comedy show from some fourty years ago, and it can get a little rowdy. This will suit our purposes well. The floo coordinates for the fireplace in the back room are attached below._

_In expectation of your acceptance, I have reserved a room at the back of the pub, under the name 'Black'._

_So as not to catch you by surprise, I should let you know that I and my colleagues are aware of Lady Black's operations, and are in full agreement with its purpose and function. Some of my associates will also be in attendance._

_I also can see, by the charms on this missive, that your children have informed you of the suspected source of the rumours at Hogwarts. This is one of the topics for discussion._

_In anticipation of a fruitful meeting, I remain your humble servant._

_Tiberius James, Fourth Earl of Ogden _

Harry grimaced. "Damn. I had hoped it would change the subject."


	2. They Are A-Changin

**Chapter 2: They Are A-Changin'**

**Rating:** M AU Post-Hogwarts

**Disclaimer:** The usual – I own nothing, I see nothing, I hear nothing, I was not even here. Just playing in JKR's sandbox again.

**Author's Opening Note:** This is sequel to 'HP and the Laws of Love', which is itself a sequel to 'Pansy Invictus'.

In another story, some reviews objected strongly to the idea of polygamy. However, as I stated in my profile, I do not agree with the concept of polygamy either, but in conflict there are stories to be told. This is one of them.

**Warnings: **Some serious nastiness is apparent

**The Paradigms, They Are A-Changin'**

At three o'clock the following Tuesday, Harry Potter and his two senior wives stepped from the floo in the back room at the 'Pork and Prime Minister'. As Harry adjusted his balance, through the closed door to the rest of the pub, they heard a loud collective "Say! No! More!", followed by loud and drunken laughter.

Sitting in two armchairs were Lord Ogden, owner of the Ogden distillery, and a middle-aged (for a wizard) man wearing Healers' robes.

Ogden rose and shook hands with the three. "Lord Potter, Lady Potter, Lady Black. Welcome, and may I present Healer Michaels. Henry, I do not believe you have met these fine folks."

Healer Michaels rose and shook hands with the three, saying "Call me Henry, or Hank, please," after which the three new-comers asked to be addressed by their first names as well.

A knock came on the door, and Ogden pulled his wand, and after waving it in a pattern the three younger magicals did not recognise, called out "Enter".

A youngish and quite pregnant witch entered the room, whom the trio knew well but hadn't seen at family gatherings for several months, ostensibly because of long hours at her office. She was carrying a muggle-style briefcase. Ogden smiled and said, "Hermione, I do believe you know these people?" As she smiled and hugged the three in turn, turning to allow for necessary space, she added, "Hello, T.J. Hi, Hank. Thanks for including me in this confab."

Harry started to ask, "Lord Ogden,..." when the older wizard interrupted him, saying, "Lord Potter. Harry. I will explain, but first...", and he waved his wand around the room in patterns which Harry and Pansy recognised as privacy, anti-listening, high security and anti-intrusion spells. Ogden then nodded, and stood up.

The old wizard raised his hands into the air, and clasped them together. In what was apparently a ritual opening, he opened his hands and spread his arms. As he did this, he announced, "What has been closed is now open. What was hidden is now to be revealed. As the Senior Officer present, I authorize this disclosure of secret matters."

Harry looked at the older wizard questioningly. Ogden smiled, and said, "Lord Potter, Lady Potter, Lady Black, you are now participating in a meeting of staff of the Department of Mysteries. By the way, would you like some refreshments? We have coffee, tea, butterbeer, wine, cider and ale."

Ginny looked at the old wizard. "What, no firewhiskey?"

Ogden laughed. Actually Lady Potter, I never touch the awful stuff. We in the department sell it, and many other things, to fund our operations. The Ministry funding only covers about ten percent of what we need, and they would be horrified by some of the stuff we get up to, so like many secret organizations we just raise our own money, and don't bother telling our official masters what we are doing. By the way, it was your great-great grandfather who invented it; when he came up with it, he cried out "We have got to get this into the hands of teenagers! Intoxicating, illegal, blows steam out their ears! They would go crazy for it!" You see, he was about to get married to your great-great grandmother whose family was very stuffy, and it wouldn't do to have his name linked to the new 'demon drink', so I took it on. Your paternal line has been pranksters from way back. George Weasley was my mentor in the Department when I started after I graduated from Hogwarts, class of '56, it was."

Pansy looked suspicious. "You were at Hogwarts in 1956 and worked with Ginny's great-great-grandfather? Impossible. Aren't you a little old for that?" Being of a suspicious nature, her paranoia started rising.

Ogden smiled. "Lady Black, it was 1856. I'm not that young, and it has been some time since I was at school, as you can imagine. George and his sister Charlotte, named for the king and queen of their day, became good friends even though they were almost a century older than I was."

Ginny turned, and looked towards Hermione, accusingly. "You work for the Department of Mysteries. I never knew that."

Hermione smiled at her sister-in-law. "You were not supposed to know. That's part of the mystery."

"But you never told me," complained the red-head.

Hermione smiled more widely. She looked at her two colleagues, and added with a smile, "No I didn't." Together and smiling, the three chanted in unison "We don't speak about it."

The three Unspeakables laughed at the stunned look on the faces of their guests at their in-joke.

Ginny looked at Hermione, and very obviously stared at her expanding belly. "So, you and Bill then?"

Hermione shook her head. "Nope. It was a very generous offer from Bill and Fleur, but I couldn't do that to Ron. No, it's all Ron. Well no, it's half Ron and half me." She looked over at Harry and asked "Do you remember when you were trying to get Daphne and Tracey pregnant. I told you that what were called 'other methods' could work if the wizard was injured." She looked at the Healer, and asked, "Hank, can you take it from here please?"

Michaels nodded. "Muggle had developed methods they call In-Vitro Fertilization, when a couple cannot conceive normally - it's also known as 'doing it in a dish'. In this specific case, as there were some rather serious injuries, and hence no sperm available, we took some cells from Ron and using magical and muggle methods, forced the cells to undergo meiosis, which is the process where the cells divide but in a way to have only half the usual number of chromosomes, becoming the cells needed for sexual reproduction. We mixed the so-called gametes with eggs we extracted from Hermione, and implanted some of the viable combined cells into her womb. As with muggle IVF, you use multiple cells, because the implant success is not perfect, so there is always the risk of multiple births. In her case, there is going to be another set of Weasley twins in a couple months."

Pansy looked sceptical. "You used muggle techniques? I wouldn't have thought that this was allowed by the Ministry, in a Ministry department."

Hermione smiled. "That's why the Ministry thinks that Bill is the father, and we would like to maintain that delusion. Both methods fall under the old pure-blood laws but this way it makes it seem like, for all my mudblood status and progressive ideas, I am holding to the 'old ways', like a proper little pure-blood wife. Little do they suspect that the old laws can be taken in ways they would never have thought of. The idiots."

Harry smiled at his sister-in-law, and nodded towards the Healer. "I see you have found a nitch for yourself when other people will lecture us as much as you do. Congratulations."

Pansy turned to look at the Healer, and her eyes narrowed. "I thought you had been murdered by the pure-blood supremacists!"

Healer Michaels nodded and smiled. "Another deception. You were supposed to think that. The Department confirmed the inbreeding trend many years ago, and tried to get the information out through the ministry, but the old fogeys kept suppressing it. So we published a paper in the Healer's literature, and then I disappeared, as if I had been killed. It was hoped that the murder of a Healer would shock people into taking it seriously, or at least push the more thoughtful into some action, by blaming the Purists. Word got around among the Healers, and was starting to have an effect. It was working, but very slowly, and then Voldemort returned, and there were more immediate issues with the supremacists. Issues which Lord Potter here handled as well as could be hoped given the power that the Death Eaters had, both physically and politically."

Pansy shook her head at this very long-term strategy. "But that would take too long to have results."

Ogden smiled. "Ah, yes, you indeed raise a point I wanted to bring to your attention. Part of the reason that we don't speak of our work is that we do keep an eye on what is happening in the muggle world, to the extent that quite a few in the magical world would try to shut us down, or worse, if they knew. So we make sure they don't know."

"We research new things, and old. Some parts of magic are very deep, and some beliefs our people hold are, quite frankly, stupid! Certainly, over the years, if the Wizengamot had known what we do, they would have shut us down, and probably had us executed for treason. To them, admitting that muggles could do things they couldn't, or even that muggles were human, was a treasonous thought. So we just don't tell them about it."

Harry decided to get to the point. "Then why tell us?"

Michaels smiled. "That kind of leads into the problems we wanted to talk to you folks about."

The three Unspeakables looked at each other and nodded. Lord Ogden began.

"Lord and Lady Potter. Lady Black. Harry, Ginny and Pansy. You have all fallen into some conceptual traps, and are making some bad decisions because of it. Some of those decisions have long-term consequences that we in the DOM have decided that we cannot allow to occur."

"A minor one, Harry, is that you're getting very tired, and are starting to make mistakes about people. Tell me, would you describe Augusta Longbottom as a radical, or as a conservative?"

Harry shook his head at this apparent change in direction, and said "She's about as conservative as anyone I have ever met."

Ogden nodded. "Harry, she supports the changes you and her grandson, and others like our Hermione here, are making. She is uncomfortable with the pace of the change, but she is behind you all the way. She knows your heart is in the right place, and you have helped her grandson become the man she wants him to be. She has been my friend for over a hundred years, and I can tell you that she, and many other conservative witches and wizards are not your enemies. But you are starting to see them as such. A tired man makes a lot of assumptions, and makes mistakes. People are generally uncomfortable with change, particularly if they have been a certain way for a long time. People get comfortable with what they know, what they grew up with. With a long lifespan, that really limits change. Which leads me to my next point."

"The main problem comes from the fact that Hermione here, and Harry were raised by muggles"

Harry started to stand up enraged, when Hermione and Lord Ogden raise their hands to halt him.

Hermione spoke. "Harry, the issue is that you and I were not exposed to one of the basic assumptions in the magical world. The issue is the fact that we live much longer than muggles typically do. It is not a matter of magicals being better, or any such thing, but a lot of magical society is based on lifespans of many more years. In some cases, like T.J. here, of almost two hundred. "

Ogden continued. "Lord Potter, your problem with the laws about the virility of Ancient Families is part of this fact. You have been trying to repeal the laws where a Head of House is emasculated. The fact is, like evolutionary theory, the basic laws about Ancient families are based on the need to produce the later generations. The basic essence of Magic itself does not care for the individual, but only for the continuation of the species, or specifically, the family. Given this essential fact, if the Head is no longer fertile, he is no longer, genetically, acceptable to 'Magic'."

Given this fact, the laws were passed to make the punishments for creating this situation, extremely onerous. Killing the Head of a Family was acceptable. Historically, that happened all the time. But creating a situation where a family was headed by a non-fertile person was unacceptable, to Magic itself!"

"In our work, we have found that magic, and we think of it with a capital M, is not just something we do, but an all-encompassing force of nature. Like gravity or evolution. A popular muggle movie from some years back talked about 'The Force' as a universal essence which has its own rules and features. Big 'M' Magic is like that, and the continuation of a major family gets woven into the fabric of Magic. That's why the designation of an 'Ancient' is so significant. 'Noble' may be a matter of opinion, but 'Ancient means that your family has become part of Magic itself. We suspect that this is one factor why your mother's sacrifice to protect you from Voldemort was so powerful."

Harry scowled. "But why was this horrendous punishment limited to injuries to wizards only?"

Michaels looked at his colleagues. "This one is mine. When these laws were instituted, it was in the 1200's. For one thing, society was even more patriarchal then, if that can be believed, and it was very rare that a witch was considered the Head of a family. Perhaps as regent for under-aged children if her wizard husband was killed, but that was about all. But more importantly, if a witch, as the rare Head of a Family, was injured to the point where she's was no longer fertile, it was very unlikely, at the time, that she could or would survive the injury. The combination of situations was sufficiently rare that essentially it was ignored."

Hermione added, "Harry, you may not be able to repeal the entire law, as you are facing the resistance of the Essence of Magic itself, but you could make it more fair. Propose that, now that Healers can treat injuries which would have been terminal in former times, witches be given the same legal protection and status afforded to wizards. And get rid of the references to pure-bloods only – that's just wrong! It may not seem much of an improvement, but it is a start. It may not cure all the wrongs we want to cure, but it does cure another, which is part of what we have been trying to do for a long time."

Harry looked at his two wives, and they nodded in agreement. It was not what they wanted to accomplish, but it was indeed a start. More, it did not address the problem of the 'Three Sisters'.

Ogden nodded as well. "This addresses the issue, which may have occurred to you, of why Dark Lords don't last very long."

Ginny looked puzzled. "Isn't it a matter that good people finally stand up to them, and overthrow them? Like Dumbledore did with Grindewald, and Harry and the rest of us did with Voldemort?"

Ogden shook his head. "Unfortunately not! A number of people have commented on how our people tend to act like sheep. We have been lied to and led by the nose, so many times, that we have let Dark Lords and Ladies, and corrupt politicians for that matter, run roughshod over us. Personally, I blame Hogwarts and in part, Albus Dumbledore."

At the shocked looks of the younger folks, he added, "Let me explain that comment. At Hogwarts, we become accustomed to having the Headmaster and the Professors telling us what to do, when to get up and so on, and basically having total authority over us. So when we get out into the world, we are used to, we have been trained, to blindly following instructions by powerful leaders."

"In the case of Dumbledore, partially by his own achievements, and partly due to his multiple powerful positions, almost nobody questioned anything he did. Harry, when you first put the kibosh on Voldemort, we in the Department were extremely curious, professionally, about what happened. I personally spoke with Minerva McGonagall, who had objected to Dumbledore leaving you with your relatives, but he said it was for the best, and in spite of her misgivings, she let it go. Dumbledore had spoken, and that was all there was to it. As a people, we have been trained not to question, not to rock the boat, not to rise up in anger."

Harry asked, "Did Professor McGonagall ever say who told everyone about me and what happened? Within the family, we have all wondered who let the word leak as to what happened, and what I looked like. Even to describing my scar in such detail. I could never figure out who let the story out. I mean, Hagrid couldn't keep a secret if his life depended on it, but I think he would have been very upset if he had told people, particularly when Dumbledore said not to. How did I become so damned famous when supposedly only four people saw me after the event, and Sirius was immediately thrown into Azkaban!"

Ogden smiled. "None of them, as you phrased it, leaked the story and description. Remember, you live in a magical society. When one of the Ministry's chief seers, Madame Anne Roebuck, announced Voldemort's downfall and what happened, and this is confirmed by eight other respected seers and clairvoyants, the news was out, and the 'Boy-Who-Lived' had become a hero to our people."

"No Harry, the reason that Dark Lords, or Ladies for that matter, is that their ambitions are contrary to Magic itself. As I said, Magic doesn't really give a rat's ass about the individual, but for the continuation and the evolution of the magical people. The ambition of a Dark Lord is almost always for personal power, for just the one person. This is contrary to what Magic 'wants', if we can call it that. Now corrupt politicians with dynastic ambitions is something else, but a witch or wizard in it for only their personal power is against what Magic itself is about."

"No, Dark Lords don't last because Magic Itself intervenes. For the most part, Dark Lords don't exhibit a lifespan longer than for muggles, and often much shorter. I have to admit, sometimes this is assisted by their followers when those followers realize that the power he promised them was not forthcoming. They also seem to fall prey to muggle diseases that most magicals are immune to, like diabetes, syphilis, arthritis, and other degenerative diseases including most dementias."

"Healer Michaels here," nodding to his colleague, "did the autopsy on what was left of Voldemort's body after you first killed him. The name Riddle was rather appropriate, as the body was riddled with tumours, which would have killed him in a year or two anyway. We think the only reason he 'lived' if that is the correct word, to an age of seventy two was the years he was a disembodied spirit. It seems that those years didn't count against him."

"However, given our long lifespans, this is not to say that the influence of dark Lords cannot continue for a long time. And this, I am very sorry to say, is the essence of what brings us here today. Hermione, please?"

Hermione opened her briefcase and pulled out a number of picture frames, and passed them to Harry and his wives. The pictures showed a small group of late teenage and twenty-something people, surrounded by Death Eaters in full costume. The first frame showed the group being tattooed on their left forearms, by Voldemort as he was before his October 1981 banishment. The second showed the group showing off their new Dark mark tattoos, and the third showed them being given their black robes and masks. All three pictures were marked 'Marking Day, June 1981'.

Harry looked at the pictures in disgust, and turned to Hermione. "Where did you get these, and why are you giving them to us?"

Hermione looked like she was going to break into tears, and said simply, "Look carefully at the young couple on the left hand side. They are twenty seven years younger than when we saw them first, and when we saw them last. I'm so sorry, Harry. She fooled us both. I guess we now understand what she meant when she talked about dying for what she believed in."

Smiling as they were issued their Death Eater robes and masks were the mother and father of Harry's three young concubines.

Lord Ogden asked softly, "Harry, did you or Hermione suggest that you marry the three girls, or did their mother do so?"

Harry thought back the seven years to that stressful day. "It was their mother. It was Edna Groffle who suggested it. She said it was the only way to keep them from being executed with her and her husband. And then she smiled at me when I agreed." He hung his head and shook it side to side.

Harry turned to Hermione again. "Where the hell did you get these?"

Hermione was having trouble speaking, so Ogden spoke in her place. "Harry, you remember that Ron and Hermione were given quite a lot of the possessions of the Groffles when they were executed. Restitution. Their money and stuff was divided among the families of those he killed with his bomb, and the Weasleys got, among other things, a small sealed chest which was highly decorated, which indicated it was rather precious to them. The chest had some very elaborate wards on it, which is what brought Hermione into the Department in the first place. She asked for help getting into the chest to see what was in it. It took several years to break the wards and curses on it. Those were inside, as well as some other repugnant items."

"However, there was also this." Ogden handed Harry a parchment. It appeared to be written orders to all Death Eaters, and on it was written the words "_The Potter Family is to be exterminated, by any means at our disposal. They have defied me, and this cannot to be tolerated! It is not to be tolerated! They have gone into hiding, but I have a traitor in their midst and we will find them. Whoever finds them first is to destroy them utterly. If it is possible, spread rumours to destroy their reputation. All respect for these muggle-loving blood traitors must be destroyed with their bodies. If you find them before I do, bring their bodies to me so that we can display them so that all will know our power and that none can hide from us._" The parchment was signed 'Lord Voldemort'.

"And this." Ogden handed Harry a diary, written in a very different, and apparently feminine hand. The last few several pages, written just the blast that injured Ron and killed several of his teammates, detailed what the Groffles intended to do to kill the Weasley families, and all others of Harry's friends and allies. The last entry said simply, '_If we can't do it ourselves, the girls can. I will arrange it. Those naive bastards who killed Our Master can be fooled into accepting that the children were not involved. How better to take the mudblood and the blood-traitors down, than from inside their 'oh-so loving' family_.' "

Harry looked like he was going to be sick. "How can this be true? If they were Marked, why weren't they at the Battle at Hogwarts. They obviously weren't there!"

Michaels shook his head. "They weren't at Hogwarts because they were both in hospital at the time. According to the diary, and I confirmed it, she was in Romania trying to recruit the dragons, and came down with a virulent case of dragon-pox. She was supposed to be back in England to take part in the battle, but was laid up for more than a month. The hospital records showed that at the time of the Battle, she became hysterical, yelling that she had to get back to her Master because he needed her. Of course, it was in English, so the local medi-witches had no idea what she was going on about, and thought it was just the fever, so she was heavily sedated "

"You know that Michael Groffle was the one who planted the bomb that was supposed to kill Ron. Just before the battle he was at a terrorist training camp learning about explosives. Just like the one that was supposed to kill Ron (sorry Hermione), he wasn't all that competent, and he was badly injured and was laid up in hospital with injuries that would have attracted official interest if he returned to England. Just like his wife, he was screaming that he had to get back, and was holding his left arm as if he was in pain, even more than from his injuries. We know now that they were being summoned through their Marks, but could not respond."

Ogden resumed his explanations, shaking the diary in his hand and flipping to earlier pages. "There are a lot of entries detailing how the two older girls and the son were trained to follow in Voldemort's footsteps. Some truly digusting stuff, and many of us who read it were sick several times. One very good point, if you can call it that, is that the youngest sister doesn't seem to be in on the plot. This entry here, about a year and a half before the bombing, started calling her a weakling and useless. One entry even calls her a disappointment, a traitor to her own family and a traitor to the Dark Lord. It doesn't detail why. Still another entry comments that she (the mother) would rather the third daughter had not been born, and she would like to kill her as a disgrace to wizarding kind, but didn't dare because the 'blankety-blank' Aurors were getting too close and if a daughter disappeared, things would be discovered which they could not allow to be seen."

Harry was shaking his head. He couldn't believe it. "How can this be? It can't be. They were just kids."

Hermione, who was in tears herself, said "Harry, there was a religious order, the Jesuits, who used to say that if you gave them a boy until he was seven, he was theirs for life. Elizabeth and Katherine were that and older."

Harry looked at the group. "What do we do now?"

Ginny and Pansy looked at Harry. Ginny said "If this is all true, then I don't want them anywhere near my children." Pansy added "Nor mine. They are a threat that I, and I see Ginny agrees, will not tolerate."

Ogden grimaced. "Lord Potter, we in the Department have the means for removing people. That is one of our Mysteries. "

Harry shook his head. "No! You can't. It's like with Sirius. They haven't had a trial, and you're just going to kill them?"

Ogden continued. "Potter, they were convicted under our laws when their parents were convicted. They have had their trial. And Harry, as the Head of their family, and their husband and guardian, under wizarding law you have the legal right to dispose of them."

Harry was getting irate now. "No! They were innocent kids. I married them to keep them from being executed! And that is one of the laws that needs to be changed – it is wrong! Completely wrong."

Now it was Hermione who spoke, pointing at the diary. "Harry, we were both taken in. Both of us. They were not innocent. You married them under false pretences. If you remember, their mother was the one who suggested that you marry them, and when you agreed, she was smiling. Sadly, now we know why she was smiling."

"Harry, as the Head of the Family, the law allows you to void your marriage to a concubine, when it is found that the conditions of such a marriage was a fraud. We were lied to and you were taken in by people who were very skilled at lying. We were convinced, primarily by our own prejudices but also by their Death Eater mother, that the girls were innocent. That was a lie, and we believed it. The Groffles lied by withholding the truth from us."

"And if I void the marriage?" Harry asked.

Hermione grimaced. "Then the original order of execution will be carried out. They will be sent through the Veil."

Harry shook his head again. "No! I cannot accept that as a solution!"

He turned to his oldest friend. "Hermione, you have told me that magic is based on the intent, yes?" She sadly nodded. He then continued, "In that case, the marriages were and are valid. They may have entered them under false pretences, or rather their mother arranged it under false pretense, but I did not. My intent was honest. That alone would, or should, make it valid."

Ogden shook his head while grimacing at Harry. "Potter, I think you are a naive sentimental fool. You are an idiot. I have lived through the rise and fall of five Dark Lords, well six if you count Voldemort's two tries for power as two. You need to get rid of them, permanently."

"Dark Lords are like cancers. Are you familiar with the disease?"

Harry indicated he knew of the disease, but did not understand the reference. His two wives know of the ailment, and did not understand either.

Healer Michaels entered the conversation again. "Cancer is a very nasty muggle disease, that we wizards and witches seem to be immune to as I mentioned before. Certain cells in the body mutate or break down, and start to grow uncontrollably. Parts of the primary tumour can break off and infect other parts of the body, eventually killing the sufferer. Most Healers believe that the way magic permeates our bodies prevents the mutations."

"What Lord Ogden is suggesting is that, like cancer, the followers of a Dark Lord will recruit others, the way a cancerous tumour can spread, or technically, to metastasize. So like a cancer, you have to either cut out the tumours, or kill them. Muggles have a range of chemicals, and radiation therapies, and surgery if the tumour is accessible. None of these treatments is pleasant, just like what we have to do with Dark Lords. And their minions. They have to be cut out, or killed. Otherwise they infect the entire population."

Ginny and Pansy looked at each other and nodded. Ginny said, "Harry, you know we love you and would support your decisions. But on this one, no! We will not have these girls, these monsters, anywhere near our kids. Your kids. They are threat we will not accept. Either they go, or you will never see your children again."

Harry and his wives looked at each other. "Well, I won't have them killed. Too damned many people died because of Voldemort. I had to kill too many myself. Those girls are victims of their parents' hatred, and their lies, victims of Voldemort's lies and his madness, just as much as my parents and all our classmates at Hogwarts. Victims of his hatred, just like me! Ginny, just as much as Fred. Perhaps, not by his own hand, but by the poison he spread. I can't. Their parents may have chosen the Dark Mark, but they had no choice. There's got to be another way. There has got to be!"

While Ogden shook his head, Hermione looked at her two colleagues, and quietly said "Aurora." The two other Unspeakables paused for a moment, and then nodded.


	3. The Aurora Option

**Chapter 3: The Aurora Option**

**Rating:** M AU Post-Hogwarts

**Disclaimer:** The usual – I own nothing, I see nothing, I hear nothing, I was not even here. Just playing in JKR's sandbox again.

**Author's Opening Note:** This is sequel to 'HP and the Laws of Love', which is itself a sequel to 'Pansy Invictus'.

In another story, some reviews objected strongly to the idea of polygamy. However, as I stated in my profile, I do not agree with the concept of polygamy either, but in conflict there are stories to be told. This is one of them.

**Warnings: **Some serious nastiness is apparent

**The Aurora Option**

While Ogden shook his head, Hermione looked at her two colleagues, and quietly said "Aurora." The two other Unspeakables paused for a moment, and then nodded.

Looking at the puzzled expressions of the senior members of the Potter family, the three Unspeakables snickered slightly.

Michaels looked to the three. "Do you recall the fairy tale about Sleeping Beauty?"

Harry nodded, but Ginny and Pansy were not familiar with the muggle story.

Michaels continued "Most muggle fairy tales were written by people from the magical worlds, and based on real events, but vetted by offices within their Ministries of Magic so as not to reveal too much. The Statutes of Secrecy again. Anyway, Charles Perrault was an unspeakable in the Bureau des Mystéres in the Ministry of Magic in the Kingdom of France. He wrote up one of his cases, and then the Brothers Grimm rewrote it, and then he re-wrote it again, which just makes a long story longer."

"The actual event involved Princess Aurora of Bohemia, who was dosed with the Draught of Living Death by a rival for the hand of a prince of a neighbouring principality, and she was hidden away in a tower protected by a forest of thorns. The prince's royal wizard supplied the antidote, and the prince rescued her from the tower and administered the antidote. They married and the witch was executed. The muggle story had her awoken by a true love's kiss after a hundred years."

"Since that time, certain families have gotten rid of inconvenient relatives by administering the Draught, and locking them away. If the authorities every come looking, they can show that the person is still there and alive (after giving the antidote of course)."

"What Hermione suggests is that we in the Department have jokingly called the Aurora Solution. Sort of an in-joke of how you put people 'on hold', as it were; kind of suspended animation. You would give them the Draught, protect with some strong spells, and then store them in a protected pace with notice-me-not charm with a time limit, after which the charm would fail, and the counter-potion given. Or you could put the antidote in a vial with the person, and spread a rumour that their true love would find them and give them the dose. So far, it has just been an idea that gets kicked around at coffee breaks."

Ginny asked "How long can you keep them like that?"

Healer Michaels answered, "The longest I know of is about twenty years."

Ginny and Pansy both shook their heads furiously. Ginny said, "Not long enough! Not bloody long enough by one hell of a long chalk. I won't have them near my family! Ever again!"

Michaels looked at Ogden, and said simply, "Mallory Evans". Ogden nodded.

He then turned to Hermione and said, "You only joined the Department a couple years ago, so you haven't had a chance to attend one of the conferences. The Department of Mysteries and its counterparts in other countries maintain a close relationship with the film industries, and a lot of people in those industries are magical. The departments keep watch to make sure no real secrets get reveals, and also to put stuff out there that muggles might see from kids having 'accidents' in public. At least, magical ones. It's to convince muggles that what they saw might just be special effects, or such. Some of the first uses of photography recorded magic, and we and our predecessors got it written off as special effects."

"Every ten years, we have a big conference, usually in the States or India as they have the largest film industries. Mallory Evans works with what we call the Mouse Factory, who are one of the biggest producers of filmed fairy tales. Back in the 1950's, some of the Mousers, as we call them, were working on the Sleeping Beauty story, and trying to find a name for the evil witch. Now Mallory is very good at her job, and in the presence of one of their producers, someone called her 'Mal the Efficient'. The guy started mumbling 'Mal the Efficient. Not quite but there is something there' and wondered off trying out different ideas for names."

"Sorry to digress. Anyway, Mallory, who might be a very distant relative of yours Harry, was working on the stasis spells, which were found to be safer and longer lasting that the Draught – too high a dose, and some didn't wake up. Last time we saw Mallory, about eight years ago, she said her animal tests indicated that she had some mice which lasted thirty years, and with a human, she might be able to get the spells to last a couple hundred years or more."

Ginny looked at Harry and said, "I don't want the two sisters anywhere near me or my kids! I don't know whether a couple hundred years would be enough."

Michaels excused himself, and disapparated, returning a moment later with a strange device. He said, "You may know that our lifetimes are tied to our innate magical power levels. I can test your expected lifespans with this, and then we can see. Now, you all are in your mid-thirties, correct?"

The trio nodded.

Michaels scanned each of the Potter-Black clan with the device, and nodded to himself. He said, "I'm not going to give you specifics, but you are all pretty high on the scale. If we can put them in stasis for two hundred and seventy years, we all will be long gone, and only a few of your children might be around either. If you want, you can pass the word down to your grandchildren to be careful, but remember, when they wake up, it would be like Johann Sebastian Bach waking up to rap music. Someone who has never seen a train waking up to space travel. All of their knowledge, everything they know, will be obsolete. I'll have to check with Mallory to see if this is within the realm of possibility."

The three nodded. Pansy said, "That should be good enough. At least, to me. But we need to have them wake up at different times, and be in different locations, to make sure that they don't become that era's Dark Ladies. Okay?" Ginny nodded as well. "Sounds good to me."

Harry looked a bit sad. "How are we going to protect them for that long? For all this, I did swear to protect them."

Ogden smiled. "Good man. I still think you should kill them, to permananetly remove the threat, but I may be getting to insensitive in my old age - I've seen too much. I would suggest having some of your family house-elves maintain a watch on them. Elves last several centuries, and they tend to pass on their duties to their own children, so barring any major disaster, that should work."

Harry nodded.

Ginny said "What are we going to tell the others? We cannot just have them disappear, with no explanation. We would look as bad as Voldemort's bunch, having people disappear without a trace."

After a couple of minutes of silence, Ogden sadly nodded his head. "I have an idea."

The following Sunday, Harry and his extended family held a large family dinner. Several guests were invited, including Minerva McGonagall, Poppy Pomfrey, Lord Ogden, Healer Michaels, Minister Kingsley Shacklebolt, and Cho Chang, an ex-classmate who was now the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement's investigative division. With them was an American witch who was new to most of the people in the group.

After the family and guests had milled around for a bit, sipping various drinks, Harry sat down with Lydia, and gestured for Katherine and Elizabeth to join then. The two older girls gave each other a nervous glance.

Harry looked at his youngest wife, and softly asked, "Lydia, why do you hate your sisters?"

The three girls looked quite shocked, although the older two were much more shocked than their youngest sibling.

Harry smiled at the three, who were now surrounded by the elder members of the family, and their guests, who they could see were there as witnesses.

Harry smiled, and said, "You all have been drinking juice laced with veritaserum, as have I, Ginny and Pansy. At this moment, we cannot lie to you and you cannot lie to us."

Katherine scowled, "You're going to cast an Imperious or compulsion curse on us. We know that Ginny never wanted us here!"

Ginny smiled grimly, and said, "That may be true. Perhaps I have a bit of a seer in me, but that is not the issue now. I was concerned about my family, and I still am. That is why we need the truth. We have taken veritaserum, so that we will speak the truth. And so will you. No compulsions, no spells."

Harry drew his wand, and the girls eyes widened in fear. He raised his wand, as Ginny and Pansy raised theirs. As one, they swore on their lives and magic that they would cast no charms or spells, but they wanted the truth from the girls. The whole truth.

Lydia looked at her sisters, and started to cry. "They murdered my bunny when I was three, and when our kneazle had her kittens, Mummy had them torture them to death. I was sick for three days both times, and I didn't want anything to do with them or what Mummy and Daddy wanted us to do."

Harry nodded, and said "Thank you Lydia. Why did you say you didn't want to be a porcupine?"

She smiled, and said, "You know Harry, that got old years ago. It was something Mummy said I had to do. Something we had to do. So I knew it was something bad. Every time she wanted all three of us to do something, it was bad, and nasty and hurtful. I usually refused, and she hated me for that."

Harry nodded, and thanks her. He then turned to Elizabeth.

"Elizaabeth, what was your plan? What were you and Kitty supposed to do?"

Katherine looked at her older sister and said, "Don't say anything Betty. They're going to kill us just like they murdered Mummy and Daddy."

Harry smiled. "No, we are not going to kill you. And we didn't murder your parents – they were executed for killing other people. That is the law. We did not make that law, but that was the law."

"You will not be harmed, but you are not going to be allowed to harm us nor our children. Now talk! Elizabeth, what was the plan?"

Betty tried to resist speaking, and looked at the people in the room with panic in her eyes. "We were to destroy your reputation and your family if we could. Like you destroyed the Dark Lord, our parents' Master."

Harry leaned forward. "How?!"

The girl swallowed, looking like she was trying not to throw up. "When you and I consummated our marriage, I was to keep going until you were exhausted to the point of unconsciousness. I was to take your wand, and blow your head off with a blasting curse. We were then supposed to cut ourselves so it was apparent to everyone that we had been abused and tortured. We were supposed to go through the house and kill all we could, and then call the aurors claiming that you have gone mad and I had needed to kill you in self-defence. With the stories we spread at Hogwarts, and all the bodies, and the wounds on our bodies, the Great Harry Potter would go down in history as the monster he actually is! Our Lord would be avenged."

Harry grimaced. "How was I the monster. Your Dark Lord, the psychopathic murderer your parents enslaved themselves to, murdered my mother and father, and many friends and family. They killed Ginny's uncles. His Death Eaters killed thousands of our people, and Merlin and God alone know how many muggles they massacred. And you say I am the monster. Why?"

Betty sat up straight in her chair. "Muggles aren't people. They are vermin to be destroyed. Half-bloods and blood-traitors are polluting our world. Your parents and thos others defied Him, and you hurt Him. That is unacceptable and cannot be tolerated!"

Harry sadly nodded, as Cho cast a sleeping charm on the two older girls. Ogden, Michaels and Madame Evans caught the two, and apparated away.

Harry shook his head. How do you fight beliefs like that, that poisoned an entire society. Maybe Ogden was right, and the only way to cleanse the world was to excise those holding to those ideas. The problem was, once you start down that dark path, do you not become the problem that you set out to fix?

Harry turned to Lydia, and said sadly, "Your sisters will be put into an enchanted sleep for the next two and a half centuries, roughly. They will not bother us again, but the family's elves will make sure they come to no harm until after they waken and take their places in their new world. Once there, what happens will be out of our hands. They will have some resources – Gringott's will see to that. But they are out of our lives."

"Now, Lydia, you have a decision to make. As Head of the Houses of Potter and Black, and as your husband, I can declare that our marriage is void as it was made under false pretenses. Under British wizarding law, that would mean you could be executed, but I would arrange for you to leave the country so you would be safe. I told you mother that I would take you as my wife and we would consummate the marriage only when you are of age, and only if you agreed at that time. If you so choose to stay together but only platonically, I will agree to that. If you wish to maintain the legal marriage, but live separately, even in another country, that would be acceptable too. There is the usual fourth option as well, and that was what I agreed to those eight years ago. You do not have to decide now, but know that those are your choices."

"I have tried to care for you, as I swore to your mother when I married you. I would hope that you have come to care for me and our family, some. But it is obvious things are different, and it is your choice to make."

Looking around to the rest of the gathering, Harry gestured to the elves to bring out refreshments and set up the buffet. He then rose from his chair, excused himself, and left the building.

After several hours, Harry had not returned to the house, and his remaining wives (other than Daphne and Tracey who had not attended) went looking for him. They looked by the quidditch pitch, and down by the lake where the family swam.

Harry's wives found him sitting by the small garden where he had planted flowers to honour the ladies in his life. He had torn up two of the rows of plantings, and was sitting among the detritus crying. The women gathered around him and communally hugged him. He barely seemed to notice the outpouring of their love for him, and what had been done to protect them and their families.

Lydia, the youngest and last of the three Groffle sisters, came up and kissed his cheek. She said that she would like to stay, if the family would allow it, having heard the confessions of her and her sisters.

Then she asked what he was thinking of. Through his tears, Harry mumbled, "Lost innocence"

Luna kissed the top of his head, and asked, "Theirs, or yours?"

He quietly said simply, "Yes."

As the Hogwarts year started up, several Slytherin students found that someone had gotten into their luggage. As their baggage had been protected by the strongest, and in some cases most lethal wards, this should have been impossible. There was no way anyone could have gotten into the compartments where their darkest secrets were kept.

In the secret disillusioned compartment in the bottom of his truck, Angus McNair found a wizarding postcard, showing his grandfather being pushed into his cell at Azkaban, where he had spent the last twenty years of his life, going completely insane by the end of his sentence of life imprisonment. Ted Yaxley found a similar card of his grandfather and grandmother being ushered through the archway of the Veil.

The cards were located in places tht should have been impossible to access. On both cards all that was written were the initials 'H.P'. The writing looked like it was done by a woman's hand.


End file.
